Jim Donaldson: Grogan took his share of hard knocks

By JIM DONALDSON

Saturday

Aug 31, 2013 at 8:07 PM

Steve Grogan remembers clearly the three times he was knocked out and couldn’t remember a thing.“The first time was in Denver in 1979,” he recalled. “After my replacement, Tom Owen, got hurt, too, I...

Steve Grogan remembers clearly the three times he was knocked out and couldn’t remember a thing.

“The first time was in Denver in 1979,” he recalled. “After my replacement, Tom Owen, got hurt, too, I went back in to finish the game.

“The next time was in Pittsburgh, on the day after Christmas (in 1982). It was one of the few times I slid. I got hit in the head as I was going down. I remember trying to call a timeout, and the next thing I knew, I was in the shower.

“The last one was in ’89, after I had my neck surgery. A guy hit me under the chin. I woke up 30 minutes later.

“There’s no mention in my medical records, but those had to be concussions.”

That’s the way it was back in the days when Grogan, the quintessential tough-guy quarterback, played for the Patriots from 1975 through 1990.

In those 16 seasons, Grogan said: “There were hundreds of times I got knocked down and hit the back of my head on that hard artificial surface we played on, and saw stars.”

For most of those years, Grogan was one of the team’s stars. So he took the hits and kept on playing, knowing his teammates were counting on him — and also because that’s what was expected.

“In my day,” he said, sitting in the office of his sporting goods store in Mansfield, Mass., “if you could count how many fingers the doctor was holding up, you got up and went back in the game. If you didn’t have a bad headache that week, you played the next game. If you sat for two or three weeks, you might lose your job.”

That’s one reason why so many NFL players of the past have developed neurological problems ranging from dementia and depression to Alzheimer’s and ALS.

More than 4,500 former players, including Grogan and teammates of his such as Stanley Morgan, Steve Nelson, Sam Cunningham and John Hannah, filed suit against the NFL, accusing the league of concealing the long-term dangers of concussions while rushing players back into action after they suffered head trauma.

On Thursday, the NFL reached a settlement in that suit, agreeing to spend close to $800 million to diagnose and compensate players currently suffering with brain-related injuries, as well as those who may develop such symptoms later in life.

While that may seem like a lot of money, the league is widely thought to have gotten off relatively inexpensively.

Although half the money must be paid out within the next three years, the remaining 50 percent will be paid between 2017 and 2033, when inflation and ever-increasing revenues will make the payout — which at present is no more than 10 percent of the NFL’s total revenues for 2012 — even less costly to the league.

But there are players who need the money now, such as former Patriot Kevin Turner, who is suffering from ALS.

“I’m glad,” said Grogan, “that it’s settled and (the NFL) didn’t drag it out. There are guys who are having problems now. This will get them the help they need.

For some players, such as the deceased Junior Seau, the help is too late.

An autopsy performed after Seau committed suicide last year at the age of 43 revealed he suffered from CTE — chronic traumatic encephalopathy. His family, however, will be entitled to benefits.

“When you’re young,” Grogan said, “you think you’re invincible. We didn’t worry about the consequences of what we were doing. We were just doing our jobs. If we didn’t, we’d lose them.

“We didn’t worry about these (brain injuries) happening. Of course, we didn’t know that’s what could happen.”

If he knew then what he knows now, would Grogan do it again?

“Absolutely,” he said, without hesitation.

“I loved football. I loved the physical part of the game and I loved the intelligence part of the game — matching wits with opposing defenses, trying to guess what the other guy was going to do, and figuring out what you’d do to counteract it.

“To this day, I still miss the camaraderie of being on a football team.”

It concerns him that the young athletes of today may miss out on that.

“Parents are very concerned about letting their kids play football,” Grogan said. “That’s too bad, because there are a lot of lessons kids can learn from football that aren’t taught in a classroom.”

Grogan approves of the rules changes intended to make the game safer, as well as the stringent protocols that have been instituted before a player can return to the field after a head injury.

“The baseline testing they’re doing now,” he said, “provides a point of reference to start with. It gives a good image to work from.”

The image-conscious NFL has, by virtue of this settlement, eliminated a long and costly — in terms of both dollars and reputation — court battle.

When the regular season opens next Sunday, news of the settlement already will be old news.

As for the older players like Grogan, the physical toll they paid to play in the NFL is evident every day.

An avid golfer, Grogan — who was a single-digit handicapper only a few years ago — now plays to a 17, largely because of what he describes as chronic “back and neck problems.”

“I’m paying for my fun now,” he said.

Whether the NFL paid enough is certainly debatable.

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